


shake (steady)

by Flavortext



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Allusions to Canon Character Death, F/M, Gen, character study i guess?, im sorry i LOVE HER so much, listens to blue healer again. decides its time to hurt pike.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 13:42:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20725139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flavortext/pseuds/Flavortext
Summary: A progression of a nervous habit for one Pike Trickfoot through VM's story.





	shake (steady)

**Author's Note:**

> [check out my pikelan playlist i only rickroll you once](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7wURva0JAURVfUfmEQZ81k?si=zt5UnzFTQUKlRWZWGiG3XA)

Pike’s hands don’t shake. 

Scanlan jitters, fingers twisting to mimic the playing of notes, the intricate motions of casting a spell, or simply dancing across surfaces, feeling and exploring. 

Percy quakes, stress-causing his muscles to twitch, only steady as he aims and pulls the trigger before his body betrays him again, only subsiding when the adrenaline fades away, in the aftermath. 

Vax is steady until he has Keyleth in his arms, hands finding a new rhythm as they smooth through her hair, across her skin light as feathers. He feels like he is bursting at the seams, held together with thin, glowing threads. 

Keyleth shakes off her wild shapes, like a wet dog emerging from the water she casts off her forms. She shakes with exertion as she casts, muscles tense as steel but threatening to shatter.

Vex shakes with anger, her fists clench at her sides and she screams and pulls arrow after arrow from her quiver, lets them loose with fury to find their mark dispute the tremors. 

Grog moves with precision in battle, a toned machine. But he has his moments, the quiet after the storm when his fists curl and his rage builds, and tears streak his grey skin and he needs a fight- a distraction. But all there is quiet shock and a closing door, too many words said and unsaid. So he shakes. 

Pike is still. She sits on the edge of her bed in Whitestone and looks at her hands. She finds a folded note in her pack and reads it, thinks about tearing it, crumpling it and casting it far away. She refolds it and tucks it back away with steady hands. She lays back, lets her hair loose on the pillow, and touches her earring. She thinks about words to say.

Eventually, her hand falls back to the bed, silence carries on. She is still. 

Pike cries a lot, over the next year. Her shoulders clench and release, she sobs into her pillow, tucks herself into her friend's sides and lets tears stream down her face. She cries out in battle, Grog raging beside her, and all the while her fingers keep steady. Her knuckles pop, she lights candles and snuffs them out, she ties her hair up or twiddles her thumbs while Vax does it, as they stay up late and chat on his rare visits. She cheers to her friends, raises a glass, dusts flour from her palms and wipes sticky sugar residue off herself every night, and when she falls asleep she is still. 

And then Scanlan comes back, and Pike’s hands betray her. She storms out, head a buzz, and doesn’t notice until her gauntlets cut into her skin how hard she’s gripping her fingers together. She tries to loosen them, but her hand quakes. Her drink spills. Grog gives her a look and she wants to scream. She frowns at the brown stain in the wood and collects herself, boxes her emotions away and listens to her friends. She tucks her hands in her lap and looks vaguely past the stupid feather in his cap, past Lionel and his dopey smile, and still, her hands shake.

She wonders if she should slap him. She wants too. She wants to shake him, as if it will undo a year and more of hurt, just to jostle the smile off his face. She watches him as he moves on glass shards around them, watches his newly tanned arms clasped behind his back, his big brown eyes cast down when he talks unless he feels particularly sure. She doesn’t like it, except she does, in a way. It’s not Scanlan as she knows him but the nagging thoughts in the back of her head, the sleepless nights and the folded note burning a hole constantly at the bottom of her bag, they tell her this is Scanlan as she wants him. Wanted, she tells herself firmly. 

She wants. Her hands reach out to him, the pretense of healing, comfort, duty. She wants to linger on his skin. She wants to find excuses to check him for new scars, to recognize the old. She wants to see him play on a calm night again, without the threat of death over their heads. She watches him cast with new precision, a slightly different flare. She watches him smile and can’t help but do the same, but she turns away because her lips shake now. 

Pike is still as her goddess smiles upon her. She is thankful and prideful, and her hands do not betray their new habit. And then, the damned man steps forward. And he says his words. Pike tucks her hands behind her back and wills away tears and lets him speak, and smiles at him, and he smiles back, shy. It’s a glorious look on his face. His hands are deep in his pockets, and she wonders what they would do if she stepped forward and took them. 

In the feywild, they rest. Pike sits in a patch of silky grass and watches as Scanlan constructs an image of himself, she laughs as he jokes about the, erm, cube, and throws a pebble at him when he tosses her a wink. It almost feels like old times, old jokes. But he turns back to his work and hums a tune she doesn’t recognize, and she attends to the others eventually. He asks to sleep next to her, that night. She lets him, and if he notices the tremors he is silent, and she does not look at anything more than his hands loose around her own. She does not want to know if there is calm on his face.

They fight. Vox Machina moves and shakes and fights and  _ wins _ . The dark sky breaks around them, the screams begin to fade, and the titan under their feet comes to a shaky halt with the groaning of a thousand years. 

And then it’s over. Her muscles scream at her to shed her armor, attend to wounds and bruises underneath, and she looks at a city half-destroyed, a temple re-ruined, a friend, and then a swath of feathers. And things are happy and horrible and she only realizes when they’re piled together in one room, her head resting on Trinket’s paw, her hand combing through Scanlan’s hair as he rests on her shoulder, her feet propped up on Grog’s stomach, that she realizes she’s too tired to shake. She closes her eyes. Scanlan nuzzles a little into her side and she laughs a bit despite herself, shoulders shaking with an involuntary jolt. Scanlan almost pulls away but she can’t have that, not right now. She turns into him and rests her chin on top of his head, wraps her arms around his neck and lets out a long breath. He relaxes in increments, sneaks a single arm around her waist. She falls asleep to the sounds of her friends breathing, save one. Pike will think about that later. She leans into Scanlan, now, and revels in his heartbeat (steady). 

**Author's Note:**

> pls kudo/comment :3 lots of stuff in the works (sequel to my last pikelan, some beaujester!) I'm just acclimating to school+work ahhh


End file.
